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Right now we own a brazilian restaurant catering mostly to a big lunch crowd. Our restaurant is more a fast food type. It's by pound. Huge buffet bar with hot and cold brazilian dishes along with our rotisserie style bbq grill (flown in from Brazil) cooking approx. 10 different cuts of meats. U pick your meat(s) of choice and they are freshly cut. A great meal for under $10. Now we don't know if we are going to stick to that concept or depending on location we might open up a sit down style where we have a buffet table offering many types of hot and cold dishes but the meat gets sliced by the meat cutters at your request at your table. And of course we will then offer alcohol. My husband has experience with both types of concepts.

It is a good idea to stay clear of Central Phoenix. There is grafitti everywhere, drugs, gangs, some muggers too. If you can get off the I-10 or the I-17 anywhere there is a big chance it is not as nice as it could be. Try somewhere off the 51 or the 101.

You might also check our west valley areas while you are visiting. N. Peoria on 83rd / Bell has a restaurant row and has a huge lunch crowd daily. Weekends it is impossible to get into any of them without an hour or more wait. When spring training is here (stadium right across the street) you have even longer waits. We need more eating spots up here. There are lots of new commercial buildings going up there that will have many new employees looking for lunch. Don't pass it up, might be your place. Low crime, nice housing options.

I stand by my original post, put it downtown!! All of the small restaurants downtown have at least a 1 hour wait almost any night of the week. Try to get into Pizzeria Bianco on a Saturday night, good luck!! The new ASU campus will have many hungry students looking for authentic places to eat. A small restaraunt up in the North valley burbs will sadly be ignored do to the huge presence of chain restaurants that dominate the area. Another good place would be Tempe.

Location: 5 miles from the center of the universe-The Superstition Mountains

1,084 posts, read 4,594,961 times

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Quote:

Originally Posted by irwin

I agree with many on here. Downtown Phoenix has a lot of potential and the ASU move downtown, along with the light rail may be the spark that sets it off. But, at this point, downtown is still dead. Even compared to other cities that are traditionally sprawling (Atlanta, Dallas, Houston), Phoenix's downtown seems small and barren.

It's sad but true. Hopefully that will change, but at this point I am afraid that is mainly the case. It may take a few years for that to change. I know the city government is really trying to push downtown development. But, given the amount of new sprawling edge development going in, I am still skeptical about infill development in the near future, if ever.

Unlike Cj81, I really don't know squat about what's happening downtown. So, this is just a general statement (yea, I'm kinda bored right now). Irwin, everything you say may be true, but unless there are some "pioneers" willing to take a chance in the area, nothing will ever happen. It won't ever have any bearing on my life, but for folks like Cj81, I hope it does happen and much sooner than later.

Unlike Cj81, I really don't know squat about what's happening downtown. So, this is just a general statement (yea, I'm kinda bored right now). Irwin, everything you say may be true, but unless there are some "pioneers" willing to take a chance in the area, nothing will ever happen. It won't ever have any bearing on my life, but for folks like Cj81, I hope it does happen and much sooner than later.

Pioneers are great, but by themselves, nothing will happen. Government policy must shift to assist those pioneers, otherwise their prospects are dim.

As an analogy, think of the settlers moving to the West in the 1800's. This didn't happen in a vacuum. There were HUGE government subsidies both direct and indirect to encourage and help people move west. The same things needs to happen now with downtown (of course on a much smaller scale). We have spent decades with government policies to encourage the type of sprawling development we have here. If there really is to be a change, we need a shift away from this policy. Otherwise, downtown is going nowhere.

Location: 5 miles from the center of the universe-The Superstition Mountains

1,084 posts, read 4,594,961 times

Reputation: 551

Quote:

Originally Posted by irwin

Pioneers are great, but by themselves, nothing will happen. Government policy must shift to assist those pioneers, otherwise their prospects are dim.

As an analogy, think of the settlers moving to the West in the 1800's. This didn't happen in a vacuum. There were HUGE government subsidies both direct and indirect to encourage and help people move west. The same things needs to happen now with downtown (of course on a much smaller scale). We have spent decades with government policies to encourage the type of sprawling development we have here. If there really is to be a change, we need a shift away from this policy. Otherwise, downtown is going nowhere.

But, at this point, downtown is still dead. Even compared to other cities that are traditionally sprawling (Atlanta, Dallas, Houston), Phoenix's downtown seems small and barren.

I'm not sure about Houston and Dallas, but I do know that there is much more occuring in downtown Atlanta than in Phoenix, although most of Atlanta's entertainment is in Midtown, Buckhead, Little Five Points, and Atlantic Station where there is even more happening.

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